Page 102 of Stoker's Serenity

“I’m not. I mean, I’m angry too and part of me wants you to do it, but I know in my heart and in my head that man is just not worth it. That he should just be left to his own misery, to rot in it.”

“You have a point there, too,” he said. “At any rate, ain’t nothing going to be done right now, right this minute. What does need to be done is this place needs packed up and you need to come home… that is if you still want that?”

I looked up at him.

“I dowant that. I want that more than anything.”

He brought his lips to mine and kissed me, and while it was gentle, it wasn’t as careful as he’d been.

I admit it freely, I practically fell into his arms. Willingly, enthusiastically, forgetting our near-quarrel of just a moment before in favor of turning my attentions towards getting us both out of our clothes.

I was desperate for his touch, for his lips on my skin, so desperate for us to be close, a sort of way to heal this rift I feared was going to be very real between us. I mean, could I accept it all? Things seemed so wonderful on the surface, things were wonderful for me, but could I deal with it being so at the expense of others?

“Stop, slow down,” he growled as I put my hands against his ribs to pull him near, his skin warm, heated with love and lust beneath my hands.

“What is it?” I gasped.

He tipped my chin with his fingers and captured my gaze with his own.

“It’s as simple as this, Little Orchid, if nobody hurts you there’s no reason to hurt them.” I blinked and felt myself lean back and he said, “You aren’t a kid anymore. It really is as simple as that.”

My mind was caught in a maelstrom of imagined consequences and I realized, much to my own startlement that there wasn’t anything they could do to me. I was safe. There wasn’t any shunning, or consequence I didn’t already know the pain of and I knew so much pain. Pain and I were old friends. Pain, darkness, the familiarity of sadness and fear… were they holding me back?

“Your mind is going a mile a minute,” he murmured. “I see it just behind your eyes.”

“Make it stop,” I whispered. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. I don’t want to feel this anxiety, this fear…”

“Hey,” he murmured in a whispered hush, tracing some of my long hair out of my face, the touch of his middle fingertip against my skin a soothing thing, sending a rush of tingling effervescence across my skin, along the side of my neck, over my shoulder. “There’s no bad here, baby. There’s just you and me. The road ahead. Better days. It’s time to work on leaving all that bad behind.”

“I want that,” I said breathless.

“Good, because I’m here for it. I’m here for you. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Our mouths came together again but my misgivings had fallen away. I really couldn’t believe it was so simple, so easy, but then again I should have believed it to be so. Stoker, the rest of the men of the Kraken, they just didn’t care. Didn’t care about the false polite constructs of society. Their worldview was something much simpler. Much more black and white.

They hurt you, you hurt them. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

I cried out when he stripped my shirt over my head and let it fall to the side, his mouth traveling over my skin, across my chest, between my naked breasts. I hadn’t bothered with a bra or panties, just throwing on a tee and a skirt since it was to be just him and me today.

He skimmed his hands up my legs, my back screaming as I planted my shoulders and head against the floor and arched my hips wantonly, momentarily forgetting my hurt.

“You okay?” he asked between kisses, his hands smoothing back up the outsides of my thighs, pushing my skirt out of the way.

“Yeah,” I gasped, breathy, as he swept his tongue across my sex, teasing my clit, suckling at me gently and driving me wild.

He gripped my ass, cradling me against his mouth, pulling me against his tongue as he darted it in and out of my body, teasing me unmercifully. I encouraged him, fists wrapped in the material of my skirt, holding it up, out of his way, as he made love to me with his mouth.

I gave myself over to his touch, his mouth, his wicked ways completely. I let the fire of his passion consume me and not for the first time I felt strangely blessed that he was the devil I knew.

31

Stoker…

It didn’t take us any time at all to get her moved out of her place and into mine. She really didn’t have that much and I had plenty of room to spare. Of course, she wouldn’t hear of moving anything until we weeded out my place to make room for her stuff, swearing that she couldn’t abide by any clutter. It was okay. I would have pitched every fucking thing I owned if she’d asked it.

In the end, all I had to ditch was most of the worthless mismatched shit in my kitchen and a worn-out fucked-up chair in the corner of my living room that had been collecting junk mail. Her refurbished reading chair and ottoman fit in well with the rest of the black leather.

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